Learn to be Still
by fifthofnovember
Summary: Because he knows even if he could be still, he couldn't be still like that. Be warned of mention of suicide. Friendship only.


_A/N: Please don't ask me what, exactly, this "means", or what "happens", because I honestly don't know. What I *do* know is I've been trying to write it for weeks, and it finally came out tonight. Guess I just had to be still. _

* * *

Tony Stark does not know what it is to be still.

He wouldn't know it if he could be it. Which he can't, which is why he doesn't know.

Clint, he can be still. He could sit there for days if he had to, bowstring drawn never shaking never blinking probably not breathing. Tony remembers how he was bored one night and looking for something to funnel some noise into his brain (because he wants to be still, except he really doesn't, not really) and watched a documentary on biathlon. How, before they take the shot, competitors have to drop their heart rate down from something around 406 to like 30 just. that. fast. Clint could do that. Probably _can_ do that. Probably invented it. Probably taught them how to do it.

Natasha can be still too. Except you don't see it like you see it with Clint. It's there, though, in the way she sees everything, probably even more than Clint can see, even when Clint is still. How she knows exactly where you're weak, every opening in every move you make and she could do it if she had to. If you made her. Maybe especially if you made her.

Even Loki can be still. He isn't as good at it, no, but he can do it. Just hasn't had as much practice, is all. Hasn't ever really needed to, at least not until now. Of course he'd never say it, but Tony respects him. He just smiles and waits and seriously, that's being still if he ever saw it.

The stillest of all, though, is Bruce. Tony wonders where that place is he goes even when Bruce is standing right next to him, looking at him but looking past him. No, not _past_ me, he's corrected himself multiple times. _Through_ me. He wonders if, maybe if he asked nicely, if Bruce could take him there, too, or at least tell him the way. Probably wouldn't fit in there, though, with all his rough edges and the fact that he can't shut up even when he isn't talking. That's what keeps him up at night when the guilt doesn't. Always running after thoughts and you would think by now he'd have learned that the booze doesn't work. All that does is opens the door and starts the party. Then next thing he knows he's got ideas jumping out the window because the cops showed up and he's got some explaining to do. He still keeps trying, though. Maybe one of these nights it'll work.

It almost hurts, sometimes. When he watches Bruce and Bruce doesn't know he's watching except when he definitely does. How he's there, but he really isn't, and Tony's never tried to touch him because he's afraid his hand will pass right through and then which one of them isn't real, isn't really there? If you look really closely (and Tony does), he's smiling. Just a little. And, well, yeah, he is sad. Only because that place is beautiful and he knows how to get there but they won't let him in.

Tony doesn't know how to get there. Because he knows even if he could be still, he couldn't be still like _that_. He couldn't stand and watch, because he can't stand and watch.

He can watch Bruce, though, and the way his hands move, the way he stands, and he hopes he can follow, that maybe Bruce won't notice he's behind him and he can just step in his footprints and not make any noise. But he knows he can't, because he's just not made that way.

And sometimes Tony paces around the halls opening too many doors, peering around too many corners, just for something to do because he has to do something and he doesn't always like what he finds.

"What did it feel like..." And Bruce freezes, because Tony is behind him, really behind him and really behind him and Bruce doesn't know how he got there. "When you pulled the trigger?"

Bruce considers but he doesn't really move, not like Tony would. He doesn't sigh and lean back against the table and prop one arm on the other and think about it. The only thing that changes are his eyes and Tony doesn't have to be looking into them (because he isn't he can't) to see it.

"It was peaceful."

Tony turns around and turns around and doesn't care about leaving footprints, because he isn't really there at all.


End file.
